One Mans Power
by Mosgem
Summary: "Because out of all the powers in the universe, in all the immortals and gods and demons and devils, they alone had the power to pick their fate. They alone had the power to change destiny." Immediately after Jake gives the order, the Ellimist pays him a visit and tells Jake just what impact he really had. One-shot


**Quick little one-shot about what should have happened immediately after the last book in the series. Twenty-sixth centric, JakexCassie. **

**Enjoy.**

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_Jake_

"All emergency power towards engines. Ram the Bladeship."

I felt our craft hum to life, the engines firing and the stars outside beginning to whip past faster and faster. The lights flickered and then suddenly went out. A second later, the soft, almost indecipherable _hiss_ of the flowing air stopped.

Funny how you don't notice things until they're gone.

Now the ship was definitely shaking, the outer hull vibrating. It was strangely fitting, I thought, that the ship should be named the _Rachel_. Rachel had given her life to end the Yeerk threat. Now, a ship in her honor would kill 'The One.'

There was no time for speculation about who The One was, nor did I care much as to its identity. Life right now seemed strangely narrowed, all my focus devoted towards ramming the evil-looking ship in front of us.

Marco was standing next to me now, holding on to the control panel of the ship with his eyes narrowed and his face set. He was prepared to do this, I knew, and there was no one I wanted more by my side than him.

Well, maybe there was one. But she didn't belong here, and she didn't deserve to die like this.

"Any regrets?" Marco asks from next to me, his eyes not leaving the rapidly growing ship in front of us. I meet his gaze now, and nod slowly.

"One," I said.

"Only one?" Marco asks, surprised, and I nod.

"I've seen enough for my life," I tell him. "Far too much, actually. There's only one adventure left that can post any sort of excitement for me. Death holds no fear."

"But you have a regret," Marco pointed out, and I nodded. "Cassie?" I nod again.

"Coming up hot!" Santorelli yells from behind us. "Ten seconds at most, Jake. Should we brace?"

"Don't bother," I tell him, closing my eyes. In this moment, this one, perfect moment, I find myself surprisingly calm. There will be no fireballs, I know. The vacuum of space won't allow it. There won't be a sound, either; it will be a silent, violent collision. Maybe, I wonder, in a thousand years, an Andalite cruiser will find the ships Blackbox and know our story. Know that we died protecting the world, died giving Ax the honor he deserved. But until then, only five people will know exactly what happened here.

No, I had no fear. But I do have my one regret. At least Cassie was happy, I reflected, back on earth. This was no place for her, on a suicide mission on a stolen cruiser, with orders that never existed.

The Bladeship was close, so close now. I took one last deep, calming breath, opening my eyes and staring at the black wall looming in front of us. Despite the inevitable collision that was about to happen, and my imminent death, I found myself smiling.

Finally. Peace.

And then we hit, and I was thrown off my feet. Beside me, Marco let out one last, defiant cheer as our nose connected with the weak point on the Bladeship, splitting it clean in half and exposing everyone inside to the vacuum of space.

Down to the end, Santorelli had performed perfectly.

My vision dimmed for a second as the force of the crash hurled me towards the wall, head first. I tried desperately to twist in mid-air, but there was no hope. This was how it ended, I thought briefly. A wall.

And time froze.

Actually, literally _froze_. With a jolt, I was grabbed by the ankle and flipped around so I landed on my feet. Completely disoriented, I cast my gaze around the half-crumpled interior of the ship. The nose was pushing in on itself, a crack opening from the sheer velocity of the crash. By all rights, the crack should have been enough to kill me right there, the pressure inside the ship dropping rapidly, the lack of air collapsing my body and turning me into a pancake. The control panel was completely destroyed, sparks frozen in mid-leap as they flew off of broken wires. Santorelli was nowhere to be seen, either sucked out the crack or thrown farther into the ship. Tobias had somehow remained on his feet, although he was frozen mid-stumble and looked as if her were ready to fall.

And standing in the middle of this all was a fourteen-year old girl, gazing at me with innocent eyes and a metal-filled smile.

"We meet again, Jake Berenson," she said, and beneath the high-pitch voice I can detect power, unlimited power.

"Ellimist." It's fitting, I suppose, that he should be here at the end. Be the one to wish me a final goodbye, because he was the one who threw me into this crazy mess in the first place. "Why have you come?"

"I feel as if you deserved to know what impact you've had on this war, Jake."

"Could you change forms?" I asked, studying the young girl he was in and remembering where it had landed us. On the planet of the Iskoort, fighting the Howlers on a mile-high deathtrap. It had been the toughest battle of my life.

It had also been the place Cassie and I first kissed. That was a place I didn't want to go right now.

"Of course," he said, and he changed. Now he was the old, wise man we had seen him as once before. He smiled at me through his old, wrinkled face, dark eyes glinting with untold promise and immeasurable ability.

"I deserve answers," I told him, and again he nodded.

"That you do, more than anyone else in the universe. I have come to answer your questions, Jake. But first and foremost, I have come to rescue you from this fate." He gestured with a hand, showing me the crippled ships, my stricken friends, the promise of death leering at me.

"You said that no one can change fate," I pointed out, and he smiled again. This time, though, the smile was filled with joy.

"And that is what's so beautiful about humans," he told me wistfully. "You, and all the other sentient species around the universe, you, you alone have the power to alter your fate. You tiny, specks of life that blip in and out and flicker like stars in the night sky, the pieces of dust that ride the ant that scuttle along the chessboard that is played by the massive players who _still_ have to bow down to an even greater power, you are the ones who have the power to change destiny in itself." A wistful look overcame his face. "It is a power that we Ellimist's can only dream of."

"There's not much I can do to change it now," I told him dryly, looking around at the crash. "But before I go, tell me: what impact did I have? Was it all worth it? Was it worth _this?_" I gestured around the crippled aircraft. "I once read that nothing was worth dying for. Tell me, Ellimist, was this worth dying for?" My blood pressure was rising now. "Was it worth leaving Cassie? Was it worth Rachel dying? Was it worth Ax being consumed by a creature even _you _can't control?"

"The worth of a sacrifice is often dictated by the morals of the man who is making the sacrifice," he answered, but I wasn't having it.

"The questions," I demanded flatly. "Was it worth it?" Ellimist walked over to the window of the _Rachel_. He gazed out as if he were seeing an exquisite scenery, not the darkness of deep space and the ugly exploding blade ship. Who knew, though? He was an Ellimist, a higher being who could see at touch the strings of the universe. With a snap of his fingers he could bend time. In a days work he could twist the universe to his own liking. I could only guess at what he was looking at out the window?

"You have more of an impact that you could ever imagine, Jake Berenson," he told me. "More influence than I could have ever imagined."

"You didn't expect us to win." The fact hit me like a punch. He had sent us to this battle knowing we would loose. We had been his pawn, the one that you sacrificed to buy yourself one more move. We were expendable. We had been sacrificed.

"I always knew you would win," the Ellimist replied calmly. "The way you did it, however, was far beyond my expectations. The Yeerks were the Crayak's horse, you could say. They would go where you least expect them, leaping over defenses and putting you in positions you couldn't win." A smile went across his face. "You took his horse, and his queen as well. With the Yeerks gone, and his Howler's gone, the chess game is nearly over."

"This was never about the Yeerks," I summarized. "It was about you. All along, it was about you. Why didn't you tell us?"

"Would you have fought as hard?" He asked, and I shook my head. I wouldn't have sacrificed what I had for some foreign, everlasting battle. I had been fighting for two reasons: my planet and my brother. "Precisely. I stacked the deck where I could, helped you out when I was allowed, but it was down to you at the end."

"How long can you keep this up?" I questioned, gesturing to the crumpled ship, the frozen time and most of all, the crumbling blade ship. The Ellimist winced.

"Not long," he admitted. "The One does not take kindly to being injured, least of all by a sentient species. Perhaps twenty more of your minutes."

"Then tell me," I said. "Tell me, what did we do? How did we change fate?"

"You remember Guide, from the planet of the Iskoort?" he asked, and I nodded. "Well, it seems that you visiting him had turned out a rather large profit for our Iskoort friend. With both the memories you gave him and the technology, he became, you could say, the Bill Gates of the land."

"Your point?"

"Using this wealth, he funded a space exploration program to go in search of other life forms. Suffice to say, the Yeerks and the Iskoort have met each other now, and as we speak treaties are being negotiated with the Andalite leaders and the captive Yeerks to set up such an arrangement."

"So that's it," I said. "The Yeerks are done?" The Ellimist nodded gravely.

"All thanks to six humans with the power to morph," he smiled. "Who would have thought."

"And this is where I'm supposed to be." I cast my eyes around the interior of the ship, taking in the awaiting carnage. It was teetering on the edge of a cliff, knowing your rope was going to break any second. Oddly, it didn't scare me, just sent a chill of anticipation down my back. Peace.

"Um… not quite," the Ellimist shifted uncomfortably. "When I put you in that group, Jake, when I forced you to walk through the construction sight with all your friends, when I forced the Andalite cruiser to crash right there… it wasn't supposed to happen. I changed fate."

"I thought you said Ellimist's couldn't do that," I said sharply, casting an eye at him. He nodded, choosing his next words very carefully.

"We can't," he answered. "And that is why I'm here, offering you a choice. Because I'm not allowed to pick for you, Jake Berenson, make you choose between two paths for you to take. That is not my place; if it were, the universe would be a far worse place." He held out both wrinkled hands, palms up, and closed his eyes for a second. Two glowing orbs appeared in thin air.

"I will see you soon, Jake Berenson," the Ellimist told me. "In this life, or the next." And then he winked out of existence. I stepped forwards slowly, studying the two orbs. One of them showed the position I was in now, our ship colliding violently with the Blade Ship, both vessels completely consumed, The One destroyed once and for all.

The other one was a still picture, hovering in space, of a beautiful girl smiling up at me. Pain laced through my heart as I studied the dark skin and black hair that I had comet o know so well, the brown eyes that seemed so full of warmth I didn't know how she could hide the pain so well.

I could kill The One.

Or I could go back to earth and be with Cassie.

Had I not done enough? I had given my childhood, my cousins life, my brothers life. I had left behind the girl I loved, ditched all my hobbies behind me and went through so much pain and suffering it was impossible to put into words. Had we not done enough? I had given everything and more to this stupid war against the Yeerks, and now the being who threw me into it in the first place was leaving me with an impossible decision.

Glory? There would be no glory in killing The One. No one would know what I had done. Armies wouldn't cheer my name and mourn my sacrifice. I would die with Marco and Tobias, leaving Cassie by herself, forgetting Rachel's sacrifice.

I took a deep breath and studied Cassie's picture. One regret. That was all. The universe had survived for billions of years with The One inside of it, and I doubted killing him— if I would achieve that— would do anything.

I looked at Marco, his face defiant but a hint of fear in his eyes. I say Tobias's peaceful face, the knowledge that he was finally going to be with Rachael.

In this life, or the next.

I let out my breath slowly, stepping towards the two cubes. Looking around the ship one more time, at my friends, at the carnage we had created.

Carnage that would never happen.

"Let's go home, boys," I said quietly, reaching out with a surprisingly steady hand and touching the orb with Cassie's picture.

She saw me the moment I appeared. Her eyes filled with tears and the next thing I knew she was flying at me, her arms around my back, her face in my shoulder, her sobs shaking my body. I held her close, not wanting to let go, not caring about the tears that pricked at my eyes. Marco and Tobias were nowhere to be seen, although I had no doubt they were where they should be. Rachel would be there too.

"Jake," she whispered, clinging on to me for dear life. In that moment, with her in my arms, back on earth with the war over and the grief gone from my heart, I finally knew peace.

A million light-years away, the Ellimist watched with a twisted smile as the unmanned _Rachel_ rammed the Blade ship in an explosion of metal and escaping air.

"Not this time, brother," he whispered as he sensed The One disappearing, perhaps for good. "Not this time."

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